[backtothestreets]

"there are not enough Republican governors"

Governors may be the key to this mess. Every President from Lyndon Johnson to GW Bush has either served as Vice-President, or been a governor. Governorships have supplied the majority of US Presidents. Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and GW Bush served as governors. Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and George Bush had their apprenticeship as Vice-Presidents.

With Dick Cheney out of the fray, the Republican Party is in a position not too dissimilar to 1952 when Eisenhower was drafted as the party standard bearer, despite the strong party apparatus of Taft. It is also somewhat similar to 1968 when the dark horse Nixon, coming off two consecutive election defeats, drove through the front runners for the nomination.

Don't be surprised if all the current Republican candidates are set aside for a unity candidate, and don't be surprised if it is a current of former governor. I'm scratching my head at the moment, but I don't recall a single President making the jump from city mayor without some higher office in between.

[MadIvan]

There's a particular problem with the Republican governors at the moment; a high number of them are relatively new to the job. There are exceptions, but this does reduce the field significantly.

What's worse is that a Western governor would be ideal (to try and fight back against the recent losses in the West) - that is not a growth stock for Republicans at the moment.

Regards, Ivan